During the debate, Romney said, "Now I talked to a guy who has a very small business. He's in the electronics business in St. Louis. He has four employees."

Bonadio was watching.

"He starts talking about a man in St. Louis," said Bonadio, Thursday. "My ears perked up because I interviewed with him. Lo and behold he goes and tells my story."

Romney entire story took up 19 seconds of the nationally televised debate.

He continued.

"He said he and his son calculated how much they pay in taxes. Federal income tax, federal payroll tax, state income tax, state sales tax, state property tax, gasoline tax. It added up to well-over 50 percent of what they earned," Romney said.

"And so I turned to my wife and said, 'That's me!' And it was really cool, because she had heard the story from me, but didn't realize it had gone into Mitt's repertoire," said Bonadio.

He said he met Romney during a campaign stop in Kirkwood last March.

"One of the things I enjoyed about him," said Bonadio, "was he was a very real human being. He sat down with us. He listened. He played back things to us to make sure he got it right."

And now Bonadio is convinced that when it comes to taxes in America, Romney is plugged-in.

"We had a revolutionary war over a two percent tax," said Bonadio. "So being up above 50 percent means we're a highly taxed society."